XIX
He had a rare gift for sitting still when nothing else would serve, and rare was his opportunity to use it on his journey to Switzerland. The successive hours of the night brought him no sleep; but he kept motionless in his corner of the railway-carriage, his eyes closed, and the most observant of his fellow-travellers might have envied him his apparent rest. Toward morning rest really came, as an effect of mental rather than of physical fatigue. He slept for a couple of hours, and at last, waking, found his eyes attach themselves to one of the snow-powdered peaks of the Jura, behind which the sky was just reddening with the dawn. But he took in neither the cold mountain nor the warm light: his consciousness began to throb again, on the very instant, with a sense of his wrong. He got out of the train half an hour before it reached Geneva—alighted in the pale early glow and at the station indicated in Valentin's telegram. A drowsy station-master was on the platform with a lantern and the hood of his overcoat over his head, and near him stood a gentleman who advanced to meet Newman. This personage, a man of about forty, showed a tall lean figure, a long brown face, marked eyebrows, high moustaches and fresh light gloves. He took off his hat, looking very grave, and articulated, "Monsieur!" To which our hero replied: "You 've been acting, in this tragedy, for the Count?"
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